Of the 144,000 ID.3 electric hatchbacks that have been ordered in Europe from in the first nine months of the year, roughly 50 percent were bought by people who had never owned a Volkswagen before.

“The car is an absolute hit. It appeals to customers and has shot from zero to take top positions among new registrations in a large number of countries,” said Klaus Zellmer, VW’s head of sales. “The ID.3 has tapped into an above-average number of new buyer groups for Volkswagen. Some 70,000 new customers are strong proof that we are exactly on the right track with this vehicle and our electric mobility strategy.”

That rate of new buyers to the brand is much higher than the average car, around 36 percent of whose buyers tend to be new to the brand. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the ID.3 was the top-selling electric car in Western Europe in August. Taken together, the ID.3 and ID.4 made Volkswagen the market leader in EVs in Europe in the first half of 2021.

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Per a VW survey, 60 percent of German customers chose the ID.3 for its environmental performance, while 51 percent bought it for its technology. It has also become the most frequently-used vehicle in the household for nearly 80 percent of German customers. Better still, roughly 70 percent of owners only use “green” electricity to charge their vehicles.

“This underscores that the vehicle is highly suitable for daily use,” says Silke Bagschik, the head of sales for VW’s e-Mobility department. “We’ve come a very big step closer to achieving our goal of net carbon-neutral mobility.”